Innocence plea on tape
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 13th December 2006
AN executed murderer pleads his innocence, in two chilling tapes recorded in his cell hours before he was shot at Jaw jail on Monday. Mohammed Hanif Atta Mohammed begs forgiveness from family and friends, saying that he had committed many wrongs, but insisting he was not a killer.
The tapes were handed over to his brother Mohammed Punnoo, who lives and works in Bahrain, after the execution.
Mohammed, 37, and his lover Suraya Ghuloom Hussain, 42, were convicted of murdering her 72-year-old husband Ibrahim Al Asmawi in August 2003.
Innocence plea on tape
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 13th December 2006
AN executed murderer pleads his innocence, in two chilling tapes recorded in his cell hours before he was shot at Jaw jail on Monday. Mohammed Hanif Atta Mohammed begs forgiveness from family and friends, saying that he had committed many wrongs, but insisting he was not a killer.
The tapes were handed over to his brother Mohammed Punnoo, who lives and works in Bahrain, after the execution.
Mohammed, 37, and his lover Suraya Ghuloom Hussain, 42, were convicted of murdering her 72-year-old husband Ibrahim Al Asmawi in August 2003.
Hussain is serving 25 years in jail for her part in the murder.
Mohammed and Hussain had a child, Waheed, who has spent the first three years of his life at his mother’s side in jail.
He has seen his father just once – on the day before the execution.
Mohammed put his last message to family and friends on two tapes and handed them over to jail officials, to be passed to his brother, hours before the execution.
“Please pray that no one else suffers the way I have suffered,” he says, addressing his 80-year-old mother Noor Begum.
“I have sinned. I am a sinner. I deserve to be punished. But I have not killed. I never would.
“I am sorry I have brought you all so much misery. I know you all had high hopes from me. I have let you all down. Please forgive me if you can.
“Not even my worst enemy should undergo the trauma that I have gone through. This is the Almighty’s way, perhaps, of punishing me. But do I deserve death?
“Do all of you deserve to undergo this kind of trauma?
Mohammed also addresses his two polio-stricken daughters, aged eight and 12.
“I love you. I wish to be with you. I hope you do well in life and flourish,” he says.
For his wife, 25-year old Rubina, there is a heart-rending farewell.
“It is with great anguish that I have to tell you that this is the end,” says Mohammed.
“What else can I say? I have to pay for my misdeeds. I miss you a lot. Please take care.”
One of the tapes was specially for his family in Kotli, in the Kashmir province of Pakistan, while the second was meant for his friends.
“I apologise to all of you. Do forgive me if you can,” says Mohammed.
“I hope we meet sometime in another world. I do not know what the other world is like. I shall soon see it.”
Throughout the two tapes, Mohammed repeatedly professes his innocence, saying he confessed only to save his lover.
“I confessed for the sake of Suraya,” he said.
“Jail officials told me they would torture her if I did not confess to my crime. I had no choice.
“I could not see her suffer. So I confessed. Believe me, I would never kill. I am not a killer.
“I might be accused of many other things, but I am no killer. I have nothing to lose or gain now. I am going to die in a few hours. Why should I lie?”
In the tapes, Mohammed speaks in a smattering of Urdu, Punjabi and a dialect of his native Kashmiri language.
Mohammed was one of three people executed for murder on Monday.
Two Bangladeshis, housemaid Jasmine Anwar Hussain, aged 23 and accomplice Mohammed Hilaluddin, 33, were executed for the murder in 2004 of Bahraini housewife Laitifa Abdulla Abdulaziz.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=164349&Sn=BNEW&IssueID=29268
© Gulf Daily News
